ProRider Atlanta- The Ultimate Rider Course

It is widely understood and acknowledged that motorcycle police officers are among the best trained and most proficient riders on the planet, in any country. The extensive and strenuous street training they undergo challenges the limits of man and machine. Very few police officers undertake the vigorous course. Fewer still successfully complete it. Yet those who do possess a skill level in riding virtually unknown to the rest of the motorcycling world.
Ken Anderson is one of those elite riders. With over 30 years experience as a motorcycle officer, including hundreds of hours of intensive training on multiple levels, and a seasoned police instructor himself, Ken has now brought this training to the civilian motorcyclist. ProRider Atlanta takes main skills taught and drilled into motorcycle officers and translates these into civilian format, to benefit the wider rider world.

I had the opportunity to participate in Ken’s ProRider class back in October, and the 8-hour course was one of the most challenging and rewarding I’ve ever undertaken. I took the course on my 1998 Yamaha Royal Star, since it’s equipped with front and rear highway bars in the event of a drop (which didn’t happen, I’m proud to say). I’ve always been very confident on the big Yamaha, having logged nearly 16 years and 90,000 miles on it. By the end of the day, I would come to realize how much more I and my bike are truly capable of.
Led by Ken and aided by Ken’s wife Patty, we were coached through riding tasks as basic as the proper way motor officers mount and dismount their bikes (from the right side, never the traffic side), how to correctly lift a dropped bike, and the safety reasons for always staying in gear while at stop lights. Ken taught then demonstrated proper clutch/throttle modulation, with Ken asserting, “The power of your motorcycle is not in the throttle, it’s in the clutch. You can twist the throttle all day, but the bike won’t roll forward until you release the clutch.” So, learning your clutch’s “friction zone” and how to manage your throttle and rear brake in unison with it, is key to improving slow control riding, obstacle avoidance, and negotiating tight cornering without resorting to “duck walking” your bike through parking lots.

We worked on the skills of clutch/throttle/rear brake management all day through a series of increasingly difficult cone courses, from simple cone weaving, quick lane change, deep & wide corner negotiating, and performing a complete “360” within a tight circle of cones. As we drilled these over and over, Ken would stop and give individual observations and instruction, as well as group debriefs before moving on to the next exercise. We didn’t master the techniques fully in one day (moto cops take months, even years to master the skills), but we each dramatically improved as the day progressed.

Ken also taught essential skills such as braking in curves, keeping eyes up and looking where you want to go, “not at your front wheel” as he calls it, and rear crash avoidance. We ended the day with a nerve-wracking exercise in emergency braking and escape, as in hard front/rear braking that results in a controlled tire skid and stop. We practiced this from 20 mph, then 30, then 40 mph, seeing the evidence of stopping distance in our skid marks. My Yamaha is not equipped with ABS or Traction Control like most other class participants, but I found I could stop in every bit the same distance they did after numerous runs, and wasn’t intimidated by my screeching tires as I came to a straight, controlled stop. Wow, and whew!

By the end of the day, Ken and Patty awarded each of us an official ProRider certificate of successful completion, which my insurance company has promised to honor with some discounts. Nice.
In all, this class pushed me beyond what I thought my limits were. I saw how much more riding control I am capable of, and how much more my bike is capable of as well. My confidence in my riding skills certainly has notched up a level.
*Oh, cool feature of Ken’s class- you can return to keep practicing the skills with subsequent classes, free of charge, for up to one year (subject to space availability in the class).
I highly recommend Ken’s ProRider Atlanta motorcycle course. Every rider should seek to improve their street skills. In my experience, there simply is no better instructor than a seasoned motorcycle officer. And Ken is the best of the best.

*For more info on ProRider Atlanta, click here- www.prorideratlanta.com
*Check out their Facebook page- https://www.facebook.com/prorideratlanta/
*Photos by Phil Gauthier

Time Passages

 



Last month, my father did the unthinkable-he sold his motorcycle. It was a 2003 100-Year Anniversary Edition Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail Classic. Beautiful bike, and he took immaculate care of it. Best of all, he rode the heck out of it, often with my mother riding pillion. So to see it go was hard, to say the least. But it was time. He’d been struggling with ill health in recent years, especially 2018, and turned 79 years old over the summer. He quipped, “The older I’m getting, the heavier this bike is getting.” He asked me to help him sell it, and it went to a good home- a former H-D mechanic, getting back into riding, who has a great affection for Heritages. Very appropriate.
I was saddened myself, because not only was this the passing of an era for Mom and Dad, it was a sort of “time passage” for me as well. We had pounded out many roads and road trips together over the past 13 years or so, logged many miles, made many memories. Precious few, even in motorcycling, can say they’ve ridden much with their fathers (or mothers), but I can, and I’m thankful.

 Dad grew up riding motorcycles, back in the 1950s. He owned a stripped/bobbed 1954 Triumph Tiger 500, and was the hooligan of West Roxbury, Massachusetts on it. He street raced, blasted through town with the baffles out, rode with a pack of rascals, preened on it for the gawking pretty girls, but kept his heart for one- My mom.
When Pop left for the Air Force, he sold the Triumph to a friend, who apparently wrapped it around a tree outside town, barely living to tell the tale. No pictures remain of the bike. Pop rode Cushmans while spending a year on Okinawa, then returned home to marry my mom, settle into a career in the airline industry, and raise three crazy, “wild at heart” boys down in “God’s Country” here in the South. He left motorcycles behind for many years, even while supplying us kids with trail and dirt bikes.
I took up street riding in 1996, and by 2005 Pop caught the bug again too. We fixed up a 1982 Yamaha 550 together, and after test riding it some, Dad decided to jump back in, this time on a Harley. First buying a 2006 Super Glide, then swapping for the Heritage (more comfortable for Mom), they both went all-in, decking out in all the best H-D gear, adding a bike trailer and toy hauler to the collection also.

 We rode all over the southeast together, and many of the famous routes down here- the Tail of the Dragon, Cherohala Skyway, and Blue Ridge Parkway, to name a few. I’ve cherished every mile, every hour, riding with him across these years. He’s already experiencing “seller’s regret” understandably, grieving the steady passing of time, cursing the relentless marching of age. But it was time, they both acknowledge.
I guess I’m grieving too, selfishly, knowing our days of riding together are over. But I’m grateful to have ridden with them these years, and grateful my girls have inherited a love for riding, by the times they've shared with me on my bikes.
The guy who bought Dad's Harley? He told me how excited he is to take his wife riding with him, and hopes his daughters will fall in love with riding as well, on the back of that Heritage. As the saying goes- “One man’s sunset is another man’s dawn.”
Oh, Mom and Dad are talking about buying a golf cart now. A gas-powered one. With the big, knobby tires. Maybe raised white lettering. And an engine he can tinker with- maybe squeeze a few more horses out of? This could get interesting....